Easy Pickleball Cake
Looking to make a Pickleball cake? Here's the recipe and all the tips I picked up making this fun easy pickleball cake! Happy baking!
Servings: 1 6-inch cake
Calories: 516kcal
Equipment
- Baker's floured cooking spray (optional) (optional but recommended)
- large flower nail (optional but highly recommended; helps the cake bake evenly)
- Cake turntable (optional, but makes smoothing the frosting much easier)
- small piping tip (you’ll be using the back end to make the cut-outs in the frosting so the front end doesn’t matter too much – but you DO want one that will be easy-ish to clean out. I also recommend a metal rather than a plastic tip.)
- Small acetate sheet (or small flexible piece of plastic; to smooth frosting. A folded piece of parchment or wax paper works, but will tend to leave lines in the frosting.)
Ingredients
Cake
- 1 ½ cups cup all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ cups granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup unsalted butter or 1 stick room temperature
- 3 eggs
- ¾ cup buttermilk room temperature
- 1 teaspoons clear vanilla extract
Frosting
- 4 ounces cream cheese (half a box)
- ½ cup butter
- 5 cups powdered sugar
- 1 Tablespoon clear vanilla extract
- 1-2 Tablespoons milk (if needed to reach a spreadable consistency; I didn’t add any)
- 1 small drop Black gel food color (to make gray frosting; save and add later!)
- 3 drops yellow gel food coloring (+ a small drop electric green gel food color - optional. Save and add later!)
- 4-5 drops green gel food color (optional; if adding ‘grass’ to the cake base. Save and add later!)
Instructions
Cake
- Preheat oven to 350°F (177℃). Prepare a 6-inch half sphere pan with baker's floured cooking spray (or grease and flour pan well). Place flower nail in the base of cake pan.
- Mix together dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt) in a mixing or stand mixer bowl until combined. Mix chunks of room-temperature butter slowly into the dry mix, on a low speed. Continue to mix until no large chunks of butter remain, and the mixture becomes crumbly.
- Pour in eggs and mix on low until just incorporated. Mix in the buttermilk and vanilla extract in two installments, on a low speed. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula, then beat on medium speed for about 30 seconds.
- Pour batter into prepared pan (I didn't quite use all of the batter; an overfilled sphere pan can overflow and make a mess in your oven). Batter level should be about a centimeter (not quite half an inch) below the cake pan rim. (Might not hurt to place a baking sheet in the oven below the pan just in case.)
- Bake for 35-45 minutes, (or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean). Allow to cool for 10 minutes before removing cake from pan and removing the flower nail.
- Cool to room temperature before decorating. (Place in the fridge to accelerate the cooling process if desired.) While you’re waiting…make your frosting!
Frosting
- Beat together cream cheese and butter; beat in powdered sugar and vanilla until well combined.
- Add milk if needed until frosting reaches an easily spreadable consistency. Divide frosting in half – color one half gray (with a small amount of black gel color) and the other half yellow / yellow-green.
Assembly & Decorating
- (If desired, use a cake leveler or large serrated knife to slice cake into 2 or 3 layers to fill with frosting. I didn’t bother with that step this time around).
- Place a smear of frosting on a plate or cake circle (to keep the cake from sliding while you decorate it) and center cake on the circle. Spread a layer of gray frosting over the cake and smooth with an offset spatula and acetate. (You’ll need to be able to punch into this layer to make the ‘holes’ in the top frosting layer, so I put it on fairly thick – thicker than a crumb coat.) Freeze for 10 minutes.
- Add a yellow layer of frosting over the gray frosting and smooth with an offset spatula and acetate.
- (This will be the most time-consuming step-) Make the pickleball cut-outs! With the back of a small piping tip, press and rotate the tip through the green frosting layer into the gray one. (Don’t go all the way through the gray one.) As you rotate the tip back out, it should pull the green frosting away, leaving a gray base to the cut-out.
- Wipe the frosting out of the tip, and repeat! If you're having any trouble at this step - first, make sure you twist/rotate the tip out of the frosting. Pulling it straight out will usually just leave the frosting in the base of the cut-out. Next, I found a metal piping tip worked better than a plastic one. You can try heating it or wetting it if just the oil isn't working well enough. Chilling the cake may also help.
- (More details in the post intro if you're having trouble - and please leave a comment or shoot me an email if you’re still having trouble.)
- Transfer green frosting to a piping bag fitted with a grass tip, and pipe a rim of grass around the cake base. High-five yourself on your awesome cake - and enjoy!
Video
Nutrition
Serving: 1cake | Calories: 516kcal | Carbohydrates: 71g | Protein: 2g | Fat: 24g